Roy Ayers, the Vibraphonist and Composer known as the Godfather of Neo Soul and a pioneer in the Acid Jazz and Jazz-Funk movements, has passed away at the age of 84. Best known for his 1976 hit “Everybody Love the Sunshine”, his family released a statement on his official Facebook page announcing his passing in New York City after a lengthy illness.
Born on September 10, 1940 in Los Angeles, California, Ayers was raised in a musical family with his mother Ruby who played the piano and his father Roy Sr. who was a trombone player. Ayers himself started playing the piano at age five and the steel guitar at age nine, experimenting with various instruments such as the flute, the drums, trumpet as well as singing in the local church choir.
Ayers was gifted a pair of vibe mallets by Lionel Hampton as a child while attending one of Hampton’s concerts and later fully embraced the vibraphone as a teenager when his parents gave him his own vibraphone. He studied under the legendary Bobby Hutcherson who was a rising vibraphonist at the time and lived in the same neighbourhood as Ayers.
Ayers began his career as a bebop sideman back in 1961 then released his debut album West Coast Vibes in 1963. But it wasn’t until the 1970s that Ayers experienced a breakthrough in his career when he formed his own band Roy Ayers Ubiquity, inspired by the idea of being omnipresent or in the state of being everywhere at the same time. He also made the transition from bebop to a jazzier funk-R&B sound which could be heard on the soundtrack for the 1973 blaxploitation film Coffy starring Pam Grier (which he produced the score for) and on 1975’s Mystic Voyage.